This study is concerned with furthering an understanding of the behaviour of organisational boundary personnel, or more exactly, with how boundaries act as psychological environments. The study has two complementary aims: to describe the psychological environment encountered by boundary personnel and to offer a theoretical model of the organisation as a psychological environment, the latter being a prerequisite of the former. It is held that a social psychological perspective is needed which can deal adequately with organisations as antecedent conditions of behaviour, and that situational analysis offers a useful social psychological framework for this purpose. The empirical investigation is an initial descriptive study of the psychological environment encountered by boundary personnel. It is argued that initial descriptive studies are necessary when dealing with largely unstudied phenomena, and that this stage in the scientific process has often been undervalued by social psychologists. A diary analysis followed by interviews were used to elicit a range of situations encountered by boundary personnel having direct and frequent contact with customers and clients. Four organisations were studied, each having a different primary task. A self-completion questionnaire was administered to elicit judgemental data, using the situations as stimuli. Multidimensional scaling was applied to analyse the data, treated as four sub-sets. This yielded the dimensions underlying each data set and the representation of situations according to these dimensions in each case. The results suggest that three common dimensions (formality, anxiety and socio-emotionality) underlie the cognitive representations of boundary personnel, and that the psychological environment encountered is complex. A taxonomy of situations is constructed and several important hypotheses relating to the psychological environment of boundary personnel formulated. Implications for future research are discussed.

Yes / This study adopted a mixed methods approach, with the quantitative element forming the core component and the qualitative dimension assuming the supplementary component to assess Job Satisfaction (JS)and Organisational Commitment (OC) as mediators in the relationship between Spirit at Work (SAW) and Organisational Citizenship Behaviour(OCB) within the Australian higher education sector. It is expected that by 2025, job satisfaction and burnout will cause large numbers of academic staff to leave Australian universities. Regression and structural equation modelling analysed the study’s quantitative data. NVivo was used to analyse qualitative data. The findings illustrate that SAW significantly affects OCB, JS and OC. Most notably, the results indicate no significant differences between the permanent and casual staff’s level of SAW and none between their JS, OC and OCB levels. This finding contradicts previous research. The overall findings in this article further highlight necessary changes to Australian universities’ current management and leadership approaches to create more satisfied and committed employees.

The performance of state-owned enterprises in Namibia has been in the spotlight for many years, resulting in the Government of the Republic of Namibia to introduce interventions and strategies to address and improve this performance. The poor performance of state-owned enterprises has been studied in terms of financial aspects with less attention, however, on human resources as a key success factor in contributing to performance. Studying performance in terms of the human resources is an important area for research and intervention. The Government introduced several measures to ensure the efficient governance and monitoring of state-owned enterprises and to ensure that they are performing to the satisfaction and expectations of the stakeholder. These measures included the introduction of the State-Owned Enterprises Act (Act 2 of 2006) of Namibia, as well as governance structures to ensure that the performance of state-owned enterprises is properly maximised. Despite these efforts by the Government to regulate state-owned enterprises with the intention to improve performance, to date the poor performance of state-owned enterprises is still a topical issue in Namibia. Almost a decade after the promulgation of the State-Owned Enterprises Act, in 2006, the government is still financially bailing out a number of the state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises need to take a positive approach that recognise and leverage human resources for contribution to sustainable growth, competitive advantage and performance. Positively oriented high-performance work practices are conceptualised within the context of positive organisational behaviour. Positive organisational behaviour as characterised in the form of psychological capital, with antecedents such as authentic leadership and supportive organisational climate and employee outcomes such as job satisfaction, intention to leave, engagement in the Namibian state-owned enterprises context are the main focus of this study. The study aimed to assess the relationship between psychological capital, authentic leadership, supportive organisational climate, job satisfaction, intention to leave, employee engagement and performance for employees in state-owned enterprises in Namibia. A cross-sectional survey design was used to gather data regarding all these constructs as experienced by employees. A convenience sample (N = 452) of employees from 20 state-owned enterprises participated in the study. The measuring instruments used were the Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Performance-related Attitudinal Questionnaire, Job Satisfaction Scale, Turnover Intention Scale, Engagement Scale, Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, Supportive Organisational Climate Questionnaire and a biographical questionnaire. The results of study 1 showed that authentic leadership was positively associated with psychological capital (i.e. experiences of hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience) and job satisfaction. Authentic leadership affected job satisfaction indirectly via psychological capital. Psychological capital had a medium to large indirect effect on employees’ intentions to leave. The findings suggest that authentic leadership and psychological capital explain job satisfaction and retention of employees in state-owned enterprises. Study 2 showed that authentic leadership and psychological capital predicted employee engagement. A supportive organisational climate was related to employee engagement on individual level, but only if authentic leadership and psychological capital were not included in the model. Psychological capital mediated the relation between authentic leadership and employee engagement on an individual level in state owned enterprises. The results of study 3 showed that authentic leadership and a supportive organisational climate had a positive impact on psychological capital. Psychological capital predicted job performance on an individual level. Psychological capital was not associated with organisational performance. Recommendations for interventions to promote psychological capital, its antecedents and outcomes were made.

The performance of state-owned enterprises in Namibia has been in the spotlight for many years, resulting in the Government of the Republic of Namibia to introduce interventions and strategies to address and improve this performance. The poor performance of state-owned enterprises has been studied in terms of financial aspects with less attention, however, on human resources as a key success factor in contributing to performance. Studying performance in terms of the human resources is an important area for research and intervention. The Government introduced several measures to ensure the efficient governance and monitoring of state-owned enterprises and to ensure that they are performing to the satisfaction and expectations of the stakeholder. These measures included the introduction of the State-Owned Enterprises Act (Act 2 of 2006) of Namibia, as well as governance structures to ensure that the performance of state-owned enterprises is properly maximised. Despite these efforts by the Government to regulate state-owned enterprises with the intention to improve performance, to date the poor performance of state-owned enterprises is still a topical issue in Namibia. Almost a decade after the promulgation of the State-Owned Enterprises Act, in 2006, the government is still financially bailing out a number of the state-owned enterprises. State-owned enterprises need to take a positive approach that recognise and leverage human resources for contribution to sustainable growth, competitive advantage and performance. Positively oriented high-performance work practices are conceptualised within the context of positive organisational behaviour. Positive organisational behaviour as characterised in the form of psychological capital, with antecedents such as authentic leadership and supportive organisational climate and employee outcomes such as job satisfaction, intention to leave, engagement in the Namibian state-owned enterprises context are the main focus of this study. The study aimed to assess the relationship between psychological capital, authentic leadership, supportive organisational climate, job satisfaction, intention to leave, employee engagement and performance for employees in state-owned enterprises in Namibia. A cross-sectional survey design was used to gather data regarding all these constructs as experienced by employees. A convenience sample (N = 452) of employees from 20 state-owned enterprises participated in the study. The measuring instruments used were the Psychological Capital Questionnaire, Performance-related Attitudinal Questionnaire, Job Satisfaction Scale, Turnover Intention Scale, Engagement Scale, Authentic Leadership Questionnaire, Supportive Organisational Climate Questionnaire and a biographical questionnaire. The results of study 1 showed that authentic leadership was positively associated with psychological capital (i.e. experiences of hope, optimism, self-efficacy and resilience) and job satisfaction. Authentic leadership affected job satisfaction indirectly via psychological capital. Psychological capital had a medium to large indirect effect on employees’ intentions to leave. The findings suggest that authentic leadership and psychological capital explain job satisfaction and retention of employees in state-owned enterprises. Study 2 showed that authentic leadership and psychological capital predicted employee engagement. A supportive organisational climate was related to employee engagement on individual level, but only if authentic leadership and psychological capital were not included in the model. Psychological capital mediated the relation between authentic leadership and employee engagement on an individual level in state owned enterprises. The results of study 3 showed that authentic leadership and a supportive organisational climate had a positive impact on psychological capital. Psychological capital predicted job performance on an individual level. Psychological capital was not associated with organisational performance. Recommendations for interventions to promote psychological capital, its antecedents and outcomes were made.

There is still very little known about network dynamics (Bell et al., 2006), especially when focusing on interorganisational networks (Provan et al., 2007). There is also limited empirical evidence on leadership within these complex network contexts (Davenport, 2005; Osborn et al., 2002). This thesis addresses these limitations by developing a theoretical framework for process leadership in the complex, often unpredictable and turbulent context of the interorganisational networked ecosystem. Understanding the complexity of networks and leadership is crucial to advancing network research, which this study aims to accomplish. Although previous studies indicate leader characteristics and behaviours (Huxham & Vangen, 2000), less evidence on the processes and dynamics of leadership within networks exists. Few studies have longitudinally examined the multiple boundaries and multi-level interactions within a complex interorganisational network, as the unit of analysis, as this thesis achieves. Moreover, little research has been conducted to understand network leadership processes, which represents a major gap in the network theory and complexity leadership literatures. In order to address these gaps as well as the gap between the two literatures, this thesis presents a comprehensive, longitudinal case investigation of network process leadership (NPL) within an interorganisational network embedded in the British National Health Service (NHS). By analysing processual dynamics, this thesis’s contribution is the foundation of a preliminary NPL framework. Based on analysing a public sector healthcare network over time, the findings emphasise four dominant thematic constructs surrounding NPL that emerged as highly significant: leveraging strategic system stressors and turbulence; adopting focal and non-focal roles; maximising social proximity; and the complementary, reciprocal formal and informal coproduction of leadership. These constructs provide the empirical and analytical grounds to help explain the critical leadership processes that drive a complex, interorganisational public sector network. Significantly, social capital dimensions underlie these interrelated higher order themes; thereby affecting wider inter-organisational network processes. As a primary contribution of this thesis, I argue that social capital is the critical concept linking network and complexity leadership theories, in order to provide a better understanding of NPL. The findings suggest network leadership calls for NPL and its relational, collective, facilitative approach involving social capital among multiple participants in a complex interorganisational network context. This is highly differentiated from studying unidirectional effects of a hierarchical, central leader within a single organisation. Theoretically, I argue the importance of social capital in the complex nature of leadership processes within interorganisational networked contexts. The research contributes to an understanding of how networks and social capital can be adapted or created by formal and informal leaders within networks to reflect changing processes to shape practices and network-wide development over time. Finally, I offer several operational mechanisms policymakers and network leaders could pragmatically employ to manage, lead, and facilitate interorganisational network processes. Overall, the significance of this study involves: filling gaps in the literature, offering a longitudinal case study on an interorganisational network over time, providing a foundation for theoretical development on leading in networks, illuminating insights into professional leadership within networks, and identifying policy and practical implications for leaders and managers.

Despite some understanding within the development literature about innovation in extreme contexts marked by challenges of institutional voids and resource scarcity, there exists little knowledge within organization theory and strategic management. To extend this understanding, I connect innovation in extreme contexts with research on social and purposeful innovation. But while the literature attributes social innovation to social entrepreneurs, we know little about how social entrepreneurs themselves view innovation. Questions that arise: How do social entrepreneurs conceptualize innovation broadly and specifically under extreme contexts marked by institutional voids and resource scarcity? I explore these questions using qualitative, descriptive and analytical methods by studying two communities of globally networked and formally recognized social entrepreneurs. Analysis is at meso level of innovation and value chains but observations are at micro level through document analysis, interviews, and observations. I reveal perceptions by social entrepreneurs on conceptual drivers, determinants and key features of innovation. The findings help organizational theorists to frame models of innovation to understand innovation among social entrepreneurs broadly and in extreme contexts. In contrast to social innovation presented in current literature, I find innovation among social entrepreneurs is viewed as a disparate range of understandings that stem from varied motivations, means and outcomes related to social concerns as well as user, efficiency, and challenge concerns. I further find that social entrepreneurs turn to a mix of technology, social, and institutional innovations to deal with, make use of, or overcome constraints. The varied concerns and approaches to innovation can be condensed using the construct of 'frugal innovation' which helps provide some cohesion to the seemingly disparate notions of innovation among social entrepreneurs. I build propositions from the findings and suggest models of innovation that help develop a theory of frugal innovation with implications and lessons relevant for theory, practice, policy and future research.

Escalation of Commitment (EoC) behaviour occurs when a Decision Making Unit (DMU), such as an individual or group, continues with a course of action despite receiving negative feedback about it. Much research exists, within multiple disciplines, which attempts to explain why DMUs continue with failing courses of action. To date however, there has been very little critical inquiry of such research. Using a historical research approach, this thesis reviews and critically assesses all existing EoC behaviour research and concludes that a number of serious issues exist. These include the use of multiple labels by authors to describe the phenomenon; the considerable uncertainty that exists regarding which DMUs are subject to EoC behaviour; the existence of multiple, concurrent definitions for each ‘theory label’ and important EoC behaviour concepts, such as escalation, DMU, resource, success, failure and commitment, not being adequately defined. It is contended that these and other issues exist primarily because of the scope of the phenomenon and the resultant high quantity and complexity of research; all of which impair research technique. However, independent, pre-existing research technique issues are also proposed as reasons. Ultimately, it is argued that the state of EoC behaviour research is poor. It is considered that the mere recognition of the issues raised in this thesis will assist in the improvement of the research. Yet this aspect in isolation is deemed inadequate. In response, a prescriptive technique is developed which is bifurcated between resolutely defining the important concepts related to EoC behaviour research and creating an ‘integrated framework’ which includes all existing EoC behaviour determinants from all research disciplines. The proposed framework also identifies a number of new potential determinants of EoC behaviour, including the Autoepistemic Sunk Cost Effect (ASCE), the age of the DMU and anthropomorphic revenge motives. It is suggested that these two prescriptive responses will also promote focussed future EoC behaviour research, designated in the thesis as research direction. This thesis contributes to existing knowledge by not only recognising research issues that have not previously been acknowledged but also by prescribing for these issues through a complete concept exploration, coupled with a complete collective framework.

The objective of the thesis is to advance the concept of learning by explicating the mechanisms contributing to knowledge accumulation and its transfer to new situations. On the basis of 44 case studies, the framework is refined to accurately capture the unique features and outcomes of experiential knowledge in acquisitions. Feedback from the performance of prior acquisitions was found to enrich representations of action-outcome linkages and modify procedures in search and valuation. Inferential transfer though depended on similar kinds of features emerging in subsequent decisions. Outcomes therefore reflected the integration of feedback processes and similarity judgments. From the case studies, a set of hypotheses was developed and their plausibility tested, using another data set on the acquisitions of 687 managers. The research finds that the performance of prior decisions and the similarity to prior experiences materially impact behaviour. Poor performance in prior, similar acquisitions led to a reduction in subsequent risk behaviour, illustrated by the extent of risk management and by the lessening of commitment to specific transactions. The impact of performance feedback was also extant in the similarity of choice to prior experiences. The results illustrate that although feedback shapes perceptions of likelihood and expected value, similarity judgments moderate the impact of prior performance on behaviour. Given the impact on acquisition behaviour, the research also illustrates that prior experiences do not necessarily increase performance. Adaptation from prior failures was not unambiguously linked to positive returns, suggesting limitations from feedback mechanisms. Rather, the extent and similarity of acquisition experience led to a reduction in the variability of performance. By providing a framework for selecting planning procedures, greater experience tended to reduce surprises post-acquisition.

A large part of the study of politics is dedicated to identifying the circumstances under which democracy will flourish. Putnam made a major contribution to this field through his concept of social capital as developed in Making Democracy Work. Putnam found that communities with a high number of civic associations –i.e. social capital- had a better chance of developing an effective style of democratic government. This definition of social capital sparked much subsequent research and policy activity. It is argued here, however, that this work ignored the immediate needs of societies which do not have the required stock of social capital. There is still little guidance available on how effective government can be achieved even if the right societal circumstances are absent. This thesis hopes to find inspiration from government agencies that were successful despite their challenging social capital conditions. It specifically looks at sixteen public utilities on the Caribbean islands of Aruba, Curacao and St. Kitts between 2005 and 2009. The thesis then systematically investigates the relationship between the performance of the agencies and the behaviour of their senior officials. It emerges that in the absence of social capital, governance is in these cases mainly hampered by a deluge of irrelevant data. Successful utilities overcame this flood by constantly upgrading the quality of information, implementing a strict yet inclusive style of governance, and allowing strong leaders the space to translate words into actions. These outcomes suggest that social capital forms an important tool for ordering information, and that, in its absence, there are still alternative strategies available to secure success nonetheless.

The use of group lending for poverty alleviation is a widespread feature of modern microfinance. The structure of joint-liability credit - if one member defaults the others are held financially responsible - produces a natural tension between a borrower's social and economic interests. This study integrates theory from economics, sociology, and behavioural experiments to address the question, "How do social and economic mechanisms interact to shape a microcredit group's financial behaviour?" The empirical analysis involves an original dataset from a microfinance institution in Sierra Leone. The total dataset includes 7,025 joint-liability borrowers involved in 47,931 repayment transactions from 2005 to 2011. The empirical methods used are diverse: ethnographic fieldwork, GPS spatial analysis, social affiliation survey design, and multilevel statistical analysis of loan performance data. The original work is structured as three distinct papers. In the first paper, I examine social collateral, the formal use of a borrower's relationships as security against loan default. How does a group's spatial structure affect the efficacy of social collateral? Spatial concentration improves a group's economic performance up to a certain level after which the effect reverses and performance declines. The relationship is driven by a social trade-off between ability and willingness to enforce the loan. Further, groups that consist of multiple spatial fragments produce worse performance. Spatially fragmented groups are prone to splitting into social factions. In the second paper, I question what drives the self-selection process of microcredit group formation. The results show that group leaders prefer members with pre-existing social ties, who are spatially proximate, and have matching business types. The preference for socio-spatial factors is likely motivated by reducing the risk of strategic default by group members. In the third paper, I explore how economic cooperation in small groups evolves over years of repeated interaction. Despite the selective retention of better performing groups, average cooperation rates consistently decline, in terms of contribution and effort. Further, variance across groups continues to increase over 30 months of repeated interaction, suggesting that convergence to a stable cooperation rate has not occurred. Given that group lending exhibits many of the factors found to promote cooperation in laboratory experiments, it is surprising to find such a marked decline in this field setting. Overall, this thesis contributes to economic sociology by dissecting the difficult trade-offs between social and economic motives in group lending and offers policy implications for microfinance institutions regarding group formation heuristics, contract design, and loan management.